


The Atomic Muffin Café

by burglebezzlement



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BABBA, Barista Multi-Bear, Canon-Universe Coffeeshop, Cartoonist Robbie, Fluff, Humor, Other, Terrible bear puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-23 04:16:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9640337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/pseuds/burglebezzlement
Summary: Mabel looks down at the tiny, carved figure of the Multi-Bear in her hand and imagines it. Robbie and Multi-Bear, sitting down to a lunch date. Cycling together on a bicycle built for two. Walking, hand-in-paw, down a country lane at sunset.Yes.This is the love the world’s greatest matchmaker is here to create.“Multi-Bear,” she says. “I’m putting you in the definitely pile!”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [youjik33](https://archiveofourown.org/users/youjik33/gifts).



Mabel looks down at the tiny, carved figure of the Multi-Bear in her hand and imagines it. Robbie and Multi-Bear, sitting down to a lunch date. Cycling together on a bicycle built for two. Walking, hand-in-paw, down a country lane at sunset.

 _Yes._ This is the love the world’s greatest matchmaker is here to create.

“Multi-Bear,” she says. “I’m putting you in the definitely pile!”

* * *

_**Ten Years Later** _

Eventually, even Multi-Bear comes down from the mountain.

Multi-Bear had grown tired of the ways of humans many years before, and retreated to his cave. But he has met some good humans since that time. Multi-Bear’s tiny friend Dipper, whose family gave Multi-Bear shelter during Weirdmageddon. Dipper's sister, Mabel, who once set Multi-Bear up on an awkward social event at a dining establishment shaped like a log.

Sometimes Multi-Bear still thinks about that social event. The human he had shared a meal with, a scrawny man named Robbie, was polite but obviously still hung up on some other human. Multi-Bear is nobody’s rebound relationship. 

No, what drives Multi-Bear down from his lofty mountain-top cave is a more primal need. The need for BABBA. 

In the years since Multi-Bear found his first Walkman in the forest, he has scared many hikers and taken their batteries so he can listen to his favorite band. But the number of hikers carrying batteries he can use has decreased. Now their music players are strange rectangles, very few of which contain BABBA.

The time has come, Multi-Bear decides. The time to come down from his peak, and find a human job.

* * *

The Dusk 2 Dawn convenience store is abandoned. At Greasy’s Diner, where Multi-Bear had his one date with a human, the woman behind the counter looks at him and faints, which does not seem like a promising beginning to an employment relationship. Ye Royal Discount Put Hut and Yumberjacks are not looking for new employees, according to the screams from their respective employees.

The coffeeshop, however, is a different matter. When Multi-Bear enquires as to employment opportunities, the woman behind the counter cracks her gum and shrugs.

Multi-Bear makes many guesses in filling out the human paperwork to begin his employment. (Name: The Multi-Bear. Residence: Peak of Doom. Social Security Number: 4.) Meanwhile. Daphne, the woman he has learned is the manager of the coffee shop, sketches something in chalk on a chalkboard. 

BATHROOM CLEANLINESS ENFORCED BY THE MULTI-BEAR, he reads. “What does this mean?”

“It means no more cleaning up half of this town’s bodily fluids,” Daphne says, with a glare at the customers sitting at the tiny tables in the front of the coffeeshop. “Hold on. I need to go hang this in the men’s room.”

* * *

The Multi-Bear settles into his new job, and the routine of making a daily journey down from his mountain peak to the coffee shop, early in the morning, before any but the gnomes and the night owls are awake in the forest. The bear heads take some time to learn their tasks, but soon Multi-Bear is as fast a barista as any of the humans. 

With the money from his paychecks, he purchases a generator and a satellite internet connection, which allow him to find BABBA from all over the world. There is a galaxy of new BABBA music, covers and live versions and remixes. There are recordings of BABBA shows, and Multi-Bear is able to see his favorite musicians for the first time, singing his favorite songs in their white, sparkly jumpsuits.

Truly, life is good for the Multi-Bear, he tells himself, as he switches off his BABBA for the evening and settles down. 

His foolish wish for companionship is pointless. A Multi-Bear with an internet full of BABBA wants for nothing.

* * *

Multi-Bear recognizes Robbie as soon as he walks into the coffee shop. The human is older. He has grown into himself, and his hair is shorter and less greasy. But his face is the same sad face Multi-Bear remembers from years ago.

Robbie carries a leather-bound notebook, and while he waits in line, he sketches in it. Multi-Bear finds himself wondering what Robbie is finding to sketch in the coffee shop. 

Multi-Bear makes Robbie’s quad-shot latte with care, lavishing the foam with a drawn leaf.

“Hey,” Robbie says, when he picks up his cup. “Didn’t know you worked here.”

“It is a living,” Multi-Bear says. “You look….” He stops to think. He knows there is a human formula for this event, for meeting a human with whom one has shared a date, but he does not remember the precise wording of the ritual. “You look aesthetically pleasing.”

Robbie pulls at his collar and then picks up his drink. “Thanks. You look aesthetically pleasing as well.”

Multi-Bear nods, acknowledging the truth of Robbie’s remark, and then goes back to creating drinks for the Gravity Falls coffee rush.

* * *

One morning, Robbie puts his notebook down on the coffee bar in front of Multi-Bear’s work station.

“I never wanted to come back here,” he says.

Multi-Bear slides a quad-shot latte in front of Robbie. “Why did you do so, then?”

“My parents needed help at the funeral home.” Robbie looks down at the milk-foam heart Multi-Bear has drawn on his latte, but he doesn’t seem to see it. “I tried starting my own funeral home, but that didn’t work out. Never set up shop as an undertaker in a town that has a Fountain of Youth. It seems like a good idea since you’re the only one in town, but after the fourth funeral where the deceased sits up in his casket at the viewing hours to ask about your refund policy….”

Multi-Bear nods. He understands this part. This is the part where the human shares their emotions and thoughts with their barista.

“I am a good listener,” he says. “My heads have many ears."

“It’s just… I didn’t want to become my parents, you know? Just embalming and burying people and all that, all day long. I wanted to do something different. Have my own band. Become a cartoonist. Something people might actually care about.”

“It is not too late,” Multi-Bear says, cautiously. “Do you draw these cartoons in your notebook?”

“Maybe,” Robbie says, but he looks off to the side. “Anyway. What’s your dream? You must have one.”

Multi-Bear is still curious about Robbie’s notebook, but he accepts the change in topic. He begins telling Robbie of his dream. Although Multi-Bear likes Daphne’s coffee shop, he believes it could be better. It could be larger, with tables which do not wobble and fit more than one laptop. It could serve single-origin coffees, and muffins, and honey.

“The honey is important,” Multi-Bear tells Robbie as he foams milk for another customer’s latte. He could talk about honey all day long.

Robbie listens to Multi-Bear talk about honey, like the topic is interesting to him. He listens to Multi-Bear’s complaints about the Hand Witch ( _not_ Multi-Bear’s favorite neighbor) and the latest Manotaur pranks. He tells Multi-Bear about what it’s like, going to funeral director school and growing up in a town with a dark secret, as normal humans do.

One day, Multi-Bear mentions that he doesn’t like the coffee shop’s music, which leads them into a long discussion about music. Robbie denies liking BABBA at first, but Multi-Bear wears him down. Robbie has a soul. He has to admit that Disco Girl is pretty okay, and that’s the wedge in the door that opens up Robbie’s hidden inner BABBA fan.

* * *

A few days later, a small human looks at Multi-Bear and says “Bearista!”

The small human’s parent shushes them. Multi-Bear is confused, but he gives the small human sprinkles on their hot chocolate and sends them on their way.

* * *

Robbie and Multi-Bear chat most days, but not every day, which is why Multi-Bear doesn’t notice at first when Robbie stops sticking around. 

It’s when Robbie grabs his quad-shot latte and heads out, head held down, for the third day in a row, that Multi-Bear realizes that there’s a pattern. 

Multi-Bear’s not sad. Magical beasts don’t get sad because their human friend doesn’t want to talk, he tells himself, as he squirts spicy chocolate whipped cream on a choco-caff-extra XL whippy drink. Robbie can talk to whoever he wants. Multi-Bear has BABBA, and his cave, and a bar full of drinks to mix. Multi-Bear does not need human companionship.

He’s just mixed his third maple coffee whippy drink of the day and taken out the maple-whipped-cream from the bar fridge when there’s a flash of light from behind him. 

He turns, his heads baring their teeth in anticipation of an attack. But there’s no threat there — just a group of giggling high school students, waiting for their drinks.

“I can’t wait to tell everyone we saw the actual Bearista,” one of them whispers. They’re all clustered around their phone.

Multi-Bear dispenses their drinks, thoughtfully, and wonders. He’s noticed the teenagers of Gravity Falls taking pictures with him in the background, but had assumed the pictures were of themselves. For their cellular telephones. Were they actually photographing him?

But who would need to photograph the Multi-Bear?

He chews the question over while he finishes his shift, wiping down the tables and cleaning the bathrooms. He tries to put it out of his heads on his commute through the forest, but as he wanders past the butterfly fairy gulch and waves to the Hidebehind, he finds he can’t stop wondering.

When he gets back to his cave, he opens up his computer for an evening’s BABBA-tainment. He’s been saving a special live show from Reykjavík to watch, but the spangled costumes and smooth melodies are unable to hold his attention. 

Multi-Bear hits pause and pulls up a search engine. With careful claws, he taps out _Bearista_.

The first result takes him to a website which has — drawings of him?

He clicks through to examine the cartoons. Some of them are just sketches, showing him behind the bar, mixing coffee drinks. Some of them show Multi-Bear interacting with the customers, and serving multiple drinks from his many paws. One drawing, titled Multiferous Ursine, shows Multi-Bear wearing top hats and monocles on his heads, and holding canes in his paws. 

There’s even a store, where one can buy Bearista t-shirts. 

The drawings are signed with a scrawled set of initials: R. V.

There’s a sketch of Daphne’s bathroom sign, with Multi-Bear in his barista apron, removing a customer by the back of his shirt. Multi-Bear remembers that day. Old Man McGuckett set up camp in the men’s bathroom and refused to leave until he got a free muffin. 

Robbie was there that day, sketching in a corner while Multi-Bear removed McGuckett from the premises. 

_So that’s who this R. V. is,_ Multi-Bear thinks.

He closes out of the tabs and tries to lose himself in another BABBA recording.

* * *

Multi-Bear sleeps uneasily, his limbs tossing and turning most of the night. 

In the morning, he gets up for his commute down the mountain and into town. It’s a gray day in Gravity Falls, with a spitting rain that makes Multi-Bear’s fur wet and bedraggled. He dries himself off with a towel when he gets in, and tries to set his jaws for the day.

Robbie comes in after the breakfast coffee rush is over. He orders his usual, but when he picks it up, he’s still not meeting any of Multi-Bear’s eyes. 

“So,” Multi-Bear growls. He slides Robbie’s drink across the bar. “Bearista.”

Robbie’s eyes go wide, and he looks down. “Uh….”

Several of Multi-Bear’s heads growl, and Multi-Bear lets them before smacking one of them. 

“May I see the sketchbook?”

Robbie’s hands tighten on his sketchbook. “I, uh….”

“Your sketchbook is filled with sketches of me,” Multi-Bear says. “That’s why you’ve been spending time with a magical beast. It had nothing to do with me at all.”

“No!” Robbie finally meets Multi-Bear’s eyes. “No, it’s not like that! I just made a few stupid little sketches, and then I shared one of them on Instagram and, like, people like bear puns. I don’t get it. But then the whole Bearista thing took off, only I didn’t know how to tell you, but then I missed you, but….” He trails off, miserably.

Multi-Bear studies him for a moment. Robbie seems sincere. Possibly. But Multi-Bear is slow to trust.

“May I see the sketchbook?” he asks, holding out a paw.

Robbie watches him for a moment before handing it over. Multi-Bear opens it gently, his claws careful not to tear and rip.

As he suspected, the sketchbook is filled with drawings of him. But he did not expect the depth of the drawings. Unlike the cartoons on the website, these have depth and shading. Feeling.

“I should have told you.” Robbie shakes his head. “Becoming a successful cartoonist was my dream, but that’s not more important than you.”

Multi-Bear thinks of the coffee shop he wishes to open, one day, the one with better muffins and tables that don’t wobble, and nothing but BABBA on the sound system.

He turns his attention back to the sketchbook. There are pages with quick studies of Multi-Bear, making drinks and wiping down tables and standing and staring into space. Robbie’s written notes around each of the sketched-in Multi-Bears: _Multi-Bear, Bearista of Champions. Bet he never notices puny humans. No way he could ever love me back._

Multi-Bear’s heads all look up at Robbie. “Love you back?”

Robbie flushes a violent shade of pink. “I forgot that was in there,” he says.

“I can be the Bearista,” Multi-Bear says. “As long as you tell me. As long as you keep talking to me.” He spent many years without the company of someone like Robbie, and he does not want to go back to empty nights with only BABBA to keep him company in his lonely cave. 

Robbie reaches out. His soft, pink hand looks small in Multi-Bear’s calloused paw. “Really?”

“I could sooner fly than not love you back,” Multi-Bear says. And he leans down to kiss Robbie’s trembling, human lips.

* * *

Far away, at the foot of a mountain, sits The Atomic Muffin cafe. They’ve got the best muffins in town, and local honey so fresh you’d swear a bear just broke into a honey tree to bring it to you. Their coffee cups have drawings from world-renowned cartoonist Robbie Valentino. And if you stop by at the right time, the world’s only Bearista will make your latte.


End file.
